🗞 Daily Crypto News, October 9th 💰

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IMF Could Issue International Cryptocurrency to Replace Dollar?
Steemit Statistics & Big Data : End of September Update 🚀
Oracle's Entrance: Database Giant Unveils Enterprise Blockchain Strategy
China State News Hints at Bitcoin Exchange Licensing, Resumed Crypto Trading
Better Off Abroad? Blockchain Health Firms Gain Ground Outside the US
Altcoin Exchange Performs First Atomic Swap Between Bitcoin and Ethereum
BTC Trading Update by @cryptopassion

🗞 IMF Could Issue International Cryptocurrency to Replace Dollar?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the world may soon have an international cryptocurrency in response to Bitcoin. The story comes as a response to recent comments by Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), encouraging banks and governments to not short-change Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Global digital currency craze

The news should not come as a surprise, after the recent announcement by the Dubai government regarding its intention to issue a state cryptocurrency. Further, recent news indicates a large number of banks anonymously supporting state-issued coins as the Blockchain hype continues.

Decentralized centrality?

The difficulty with a global digital currency is the centralization factor. A major part of the appeal of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is the decentralized protocol, creating a truly free market where value is based purely on consensus without price fixing.

A globalized digital currency, while providing decentralized security, would require the IMF to fix and regulate values in order to manage the flow of money in and out of different countries. Such a system would run contrary to the underlying principles behind Bitcoin.

New reserve currency

The dollar as the reserve currency for much of the world’s transactional volume means that some major global economies may want a new digital currency to function as the reserve. The IMF coin could potentially replace the dollar in that context, should it become widely accepted. In such a case, the dollar and other national currencies would be restricted to local markets.

Some supporters of Bitcoin would argue that there is no need for such a currency from the IMF, since Bitcoin already exists, and without the centralization risks. The greatest hurdle would be Lagarde and other economists embracing and using Bitcoin globally, but the jury is still out.

🗞 Steemit Statistics & Big Data : End of September Update 🚀

Thanks to ALL of you, Steemit is growing fast!

We reached 15,4mn visits in September ALONE

There is an important difference between total visitors to a site and unique ones. In this case the 15.4mn include the multiple times a person visited the website. Therefore, as a good Steemian you probably connect everyday which will make you count for a total of 30 visits.

Therefore, how many "unique users" does Steemit has?

I] Traffic

Daily Steemit Traffic

Click here to look at the Full Steemit Data Analysis

🗞 Oracle's Entrance: Database Giant Unveils Enterprise Blockchain Strategy

Database software giant Oracle is officially a player in the world of blockchain.

The firm unveiled its enterprise-grade blockchain cloud platform Monday at its OpenWorld 2017 conference in San Francisco. With the initial debut – a public launch is expected sometime next year – Oracle becomes the latest entrant in the "blockchain-as-a-service" ecosystem, joining the likes of IBM and Microsoft, two other tech majors that are courting enterprise customers with their respective cloud-based distributed ledger resources.

Oracle, according to its announcement and statements from execs, is looking at the technology as a way to extend (and streamline) its existing cloud-based offerings, which are largely aimed at the digitization of a range of business functions.

For existing ERP customers, the platform will provide a way to connect with outside partners and customers, plugging them into internal channels and processes in a confidential and secure manner.

As Xiong explained:

"This blockchain platform will give them a platform to extend their services beyond their enterprise bundle, which means they can extend them outside to their business partners, advantage customers and so on."

Because copies of data in a blockchain network need to be kept by all of the various peers and nodes, he explained, increased adoption of blockchain among Oracle's core client base will actually create new demand for the company's traditional data storage solutions.

He continued:

"In traditional computer science, there is just one copy of the database. In blockchain, all of the ledgers are distributed, so actually everybody gets a copy [of the data]. So this is only going to expand that data storage [requirement]."

🗞 China State News Hints at Bitcoin Exchange Licensing, Resumed Crypto Trading

The Chinese government appears to be preparing for resumed cryptocurrency trading in the near future through the implementation of licensing programs and anti-money laundering (AML) systems.

China state news agency Xinhua recently issued a statement denouncing cryptocurrency, labeling it a tool used by members of criminal organizations to facilitate illegal activities. The state-endorsed editorial piece by reporter Pan Ye advocates a “zero tolerance” approach to cryptocurrency-related crime, but includes a list of regulatory suggestions that indicate an impending crypto exchange licensure apparatus.

The Chinese government last month imposed a nationwide ban on cryptocurrency exchanges, causing the price of Bitcoin to plummet. As part of an ongoing effort to regulate the troublesome ICO environment, China banned all initial coin offerings and mandated the closure of all but two China-based exchanges. The Bitcoin market has consequently endured a major restructuring, with trading volumes moving from China to nearby South Korea and Japan.

Terence Tsang, the CEO of Hong Kong-based exchange TideBit, commented as follows on the impact of the mainland shutdown of cryptocurrency trade:

“The ban did not stop them [Chinese investors] from buying cryptocurrencies… In the last few weeks, we have seen a lot of mainland customers opening up accounts at TideBit. They still want to play the game. I see a growing need in that they will come to Hong Kong or Singapore to buy cryptocurrency.”

“There are still many regulatory vacuums in the field of virtual currency, which require governments and central banks to give enough attention to the regulation as soon as possible.”

🗞 Better Off Abroad? Blockchain Health Firms Gain Ground Outside the US

Frustrated by the red tape of the U.S. healthcare system, blockchain startups founded to improve the sharing of patient data are looking abroad to prove their use cases.

The moves by Gem, which has partnered with a Scandinavian company, and IncentHealth.io, which is scouting opportunities in Canada, underscore the challenges blockchain technology faces in any heavily regulated market with powerful incumbents and resistance to change.

In U.S. healthcare specifically, rigid privacy laws, an abundance of intermediaries and actors, and the dominance of a few electronic health record (EHR) vendors have hindered startups' efforts to create comprehensive medical histories for people.

As announced at the Distributed: Health 2017 conference in Nashville several weeks ago, Gem has partnered with Finland-based Tieto, one of Europe's largest IT software and service providers, to build a blockchain ecosystem that aspires to give consumers control over their individual data.

Winkelspecht told CoinDesk:

"Europe has taken a very progressive stance on essentially protecting the rights of individuals as to how their data is used and managed and shared. Tieto is a shining example of that mentality."

She continued:

“The notion that you as an individual actually control your digital self and anything that has to do with it is fundamental to how we see development in this industry."

But if it's successful, the project could be a stepping stone toward rethinking ground-level assumptions on how consumers view healthcare data, Winkelspecht said, adding:

"This is a big paradigm shift of who really owns and controls data. The entire infrastructure that we've built [in the past] was always built around a controller-centric model, so this is a pretty big undertaking that is going to change a lot of systems."

🗞 Altcoin Exchange Performs First Atomic Swap Between Bitcoin and Ethereum

On October 7, 2017, the decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Altcoin Exchange announced the team performed the first atomic swap between the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains. The exchange says this is the startup’s first step towards creating a trustless exchange process.

Altcoin Exchange Performs the First Atomic Swap Between Bitcoin and Ethereum

In the cryptocurrency space, atomic swaps are a pretty hot topic, and there are only a few blockchains that have exchanged this way. Atomic swaps allow two parties to transact between two blockchains in a trustless manner without counterparty risk.

So far only a few altcoins have performed this function with bitcoin; including currencies like litecoin, decred, and vertcoin. On October 7th the Altcoin Exchange development team processed a swap between both bitcoin and ethereum networks.

“We have completed the very first Ethereum <> Bitcoin atomic swap! More details coming soon,” the Altcoin Exchange team announced this week.

The Altcoin Exchange team transferred 0.12345 ETH for 0.12345 BTC using an on-chain open source process. Altcoin Exchange plans to launch the project’s Github repository this Tuesday, the company’s CEO Andrew Gazdecki told news.Bitcoin.com.

Since 2011 Twenty Six Cryptocurrency Exchanges Bit the Dust – Altcoin Exchange Believes Atomic Swaps Will Prevent These Losses

Altcoin Exchange Performs First Atomic Swap Between Bitcoin and EthereumThe team at Altcoin Exchange says they still has some work to do with the code as far as privacy and order matching comes. The group says they are also thankful for the decred development team and Litecoin’s Charlie Lee for help pioneering the atomic swap effort.

“Since June of 2011, 26 exchanges have been compromised, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars worth of coins. To prevent more of these types of hacks, decentralized exchanges are needed, and atomic swaps bring us one step closer to achieving this goal,”